Art Meets 3D Printed Assistive e-NABLE Devices!

Over the past 4 years, there have been numerous fun themed 3D printed e-NABLE hand designs created for recipients all over the world, thanks to the incredible e-NABLE Community of Volunteers!

From superheroes and cyborg spies, to sports teams, Starwars characters, Minions and princesses… the possibilities are endless when you pair imagination with 3D design and our volunteer designers and input from the recipients themselves! Sometimes it results in some pretty incredible and amazing pieces of wearable and functional “art as assistive devices!”

Recently, our very busy e-NABLE Colombia teams have been sharing the beautiful design work they have been doing in Latin America for their recipients – and today I want to share not only photos and stories from a few of these masterpieces…but the design files too! We are excited to let you know that they have once again released the design files into the open-source communities so that others can create these for themselves or others who may be interested in wearing one!

Ana was recently gifted this beautiful Cyborg arm by the e-NABLE Colombia team!

Christian shares, “This arm took around 4 months to complete because her case in particular was more difficult due to her long residual limb.

Now, Ana is amazed with her new Cyborg arm and so is her family! It is exactly what she wanted and what she was looking for. She is eleven years old now and she is wearing her new arm to go everywhere.”

Felipe and his family approached the e-NABLE Colombia team to see about getting a fun “ninja” themed arm and once again, they created a beautiful design and have also shared the design files into the open source community.

This project took the team around 3 months to create due to lack of funding, but after a kind donation, they were able to complete it for him!

“Now Felipe is very happy with his new arm,” explains Christian. “He is 10 years old now and is wearing his new arm to school and his friends think he is super cool!”

Introducing “Cinderella” Princess Sara!

Sara arrived at the e-NABLE Colombia chapter when she was just 4 years old, asking for a Cinderella Princess themed hand and thanks to the assistance of another e-NABLE Volunteer, Drew Murray of Team Unlimbited, this design project only took about 1 month to complete from the time of first contact.

According to Christian, “Sara is now the center of attention in her school and her neighborhood with her new Cinderella arm! She is five years old now and is wearing her new arm everywhere she goes, all of the time!”

José and his father, visited Christian over a year ago to ask for his very own “Iron Man” themed 3D printed arm. Unfortunately, at just 2 years old, he was too young to fit him with any of the e-NABLE devices due to small parts that can detach and pose choking hazards.

Felipe first visited our e-NABLE Colombia Chapter when he was 8 years old and requested a “Captain America” themed arm.

Due to lack of funding, this arm project took the team over a year to complete for him but he is now 9 years old and has been wearing his Superhero arm for a few months now and has not rejected it so far!.

These beautiful artistic designs are just a small sample from ONE e-NABLE Chapter!

There are schools, independent e-NABLE Volunteers, Universities and end users who are all designing equally fun and functional devices for recipients and we hope to start sharing more of the customizations that have been created by this amazing global community!

Thank you for your continued support and encouragement!

If you make one of these designs, please let us know! Feel free to share by tagging us with #enablethefuture or find us on instagram and twitter under @enablethefuture and we will try to repost as many as we find!